There’s a lot of talk about making sure you’re authentic on social media. Authentic social media content is the most important way of making your brand stand out on socials. While also making sure that you’re building trust with your targeted customers or couples.
The trouble is knowing what sort of content is considered authentic, and what to shy away from. To help, we’ve put together seven pieces of authentic social content to be posted on different days of the week.
But first…
What is authentic content on social media?
Ultimately, social media is a branding piece. Yes, it promotes your products and services. But it also acts as a tool for you to engage with potential couples, existing clients and other businesses that you can network with. Authentic social media content is content that is considered engaging without necessarily pushing an agenda.
Authentic content drives back to building an authentic brand. Staying true to your core values, actions, customer services method and services will help you build an authentic social media presence. Here are a few tips for creating authentic content that will encourage more people to engage with your brand.
Don’t try too hard
Sometimes, brands try a little too hard to get people to like them on social media. Remember, social media isn’t about vanity metrics such as likes or followers, it’s about people engaging with your business and creating meaningful interactions. Buying followers, click-baity headlines, large call-to-actions or using slang you don’t actually know the meaning of are good examples of trying a bit too hard.
If you wouldn’t get away with it face-to-face, don’t do it on social.
Be yourself
Many businesses in the wedding industry are operated by solopreneuers and have a very set face of the brand; you! Your personality will shine with couples when you meet them in person so let that personality slip out on social media as well and use it to your advantage.
You can have as much personality as you want on social media. As long as it aligns with your brand and comes from yourself, instead of something you’re pretending to be, your couples will love you for it.
Forget the CTA
Not every post on social media needs to have a call-to-action. As we’ve already mentioned, social media is more for branding than making direct sales. Yes, you’re offering a place where couples can get in touch with you. But no millennial will buy from a business they don’t trust.
If you’re always asking for the sale you break down that trust. Show the value of your services with your posts and leave the contact details for your Insta bio or Facebook ‘About’ section.
The authentic social media content challenge!
You’ve already got this far, so we challenge you to post a week’s worth of authentic social media content. Testing what does or doesn’t go well on social media is just as important for organic content as it is for ads, so take a look at your results to replicate what your audience enjoys.
Ultimately, you can post any of these on any day of the week depending on what is most suitable for you. But make sure you’re mixing up your content and do one post on one platform only to stay more authentic.
Good luck!
Day One – Tell a story
Audiences love hearing human stories, and the wedding industry is full of beautiful stories that you can share.
One great way of bringing these to light is to celebrate anniversaries with your couples. Just because a couple got married a year ago doesn’t mean you can no longer use their content. Give one of your couples a past shoutout for their anniversary or a #throwback about how much you loved working on their wedding and wish them all the best.
Facebook and Instagram posts will both work well for this type of story content.
Day Two – Create a conversation
Don’t just post something and expect people to engage with it on their own. Give them a reason to engage with you. Create a conversation that your audience will want to be a part of.
If you’re on Instagram create a video through stories and ask people a question. Or use the ‘ask a question’ feature to start a conversation.
Or if you’re on Facebook create a video or photo post asking the question. It could be about how you run a wedding, what is trending, or what they think about a particular celebrity wedding.
Make sure that for both of these you engage with the responses. Responses from Instagram Stories can be reshared as new stories, while comments on Facebook can be responded to.
Day Three – Engage outside of your own pages
Brands and couples may very well tag you in their own content. Instead of just ignoring it, make sure you respond to them!
Taking your conversation off your own social media platforms and onto other posts shows that you’re a real business who are interested in more than just your own bottom line.
If you don’t have any recent tags, find a hashtag you love and comment on posts there. Newly engaged photos are a great way to do this. Remember, a happy “congratulations” or “so happy for you!” will go much further than something saying “Congratulations! If you need flowers contact me!”
Day Four – Post something relatable
Memes are a great way to find relatable content that people love. They also help show your own personality.
Take a look at quirky pages that use memes as part of their social media strategy and use them on your own channels. A witty remark about how it relates to you and what you think can also show your personality.
Just remember to keep the context and make sure everything is on-brand when you are using meme content that is a bit more out there.
Day Five – Give your services personality
We know that you need to post about your services and you can, of course, do this on socials. Just make sure to give it a bit more personality to make it more authentic.
Don’t just post something like: “We offer X wedding dresses at X prices.”
Get creative instead!
“We are in love with X designer and their take on boho and lace weddings. Plus their dresses are priced as low as X! BRB, going shopping.”
Day Six – Share user-generated content
We mentioned tags before. Well use that content to share as well! UGC or user-generated-content is one of the best ways to show you’re an authentic brand. Because you’re using content that hasn’t been created for your business, it’s been created by someone else.
Share content from another business on your preferred supplier list, a photo from a recent wedding you worked on, or something from one of your future couples planning their wedding. A caption on Facebook or text on an Instagram Story about why you’ve shared it will make it even more authentic.
Day Seven – Post about yourself
Finally, for many small businesses, remember that you are your business. And a lot of your couples will be invested in you from your customer service as much as your business. So don’t be afraid to post about yourself.
The trick here is to make sure it’s relevant to your brand. This can weave in your ‘why’ or even talk about what issues you and your business support. Formal posts can be posted on your Instagram or Facebook feed, while more informal posts can be shared through stories. A picture of you with a cup of tea with the text “relaxing on a Sunday night after three weddings this weekend” could be a perfect way to add relevance in a casual setting and show the human behind the brand.
